Monday, November 29, 2004

GBA Havoc (part deux)

So as I'm sitting in my seat playing Advance Wars 2 on my Gameboy while my plane begins to descend towards DTW last night, I spot the flight attendant out of the corner of my eye.

Slowly, he begins to approach.. both of us knowing exactly what's on his mind. Finally, he leans over and asks, "Sir, that's airplane safe, right?".

I gaze back at him with a confused look in my eyes. "Airplane safe? Uh. Sure. Yeah. Of course!"

I hate to beat a dead horse.. but the FAA/airlines really have to get with the times. So you're allowed to use your cell phone when you're taxi'ing now -- even when the aircraft door is shut. Is that their idea of progress?

Oh.. the irony.

On a related note, I recently bought an HTC Blue Angel off Ebay. Even when it's "off", the transmitter remains active unless it is specifically disabled through a "flight mode" setting buried within the device's menu system. My guess is over 90% of consumers don't know this, and are breaking the FAA/airline regulations. Heck, how about the average laptop user who keeps his/her WiFi transmitter enabled during the flight? Is it dangerous?

Finally, how is it that airlines testing in-flight WiFi services aren't affected by the use of electronic devices containing two-way transmitters? Are their flight systems better shielded?

Hmm.. what else..

I played with a Nintendo DS today in my mobile devices class. It was sweeeet. Definitely gotta pick up one of these babies eventually.

Ah, and as for the Blue Angel.. so far I'm lovin' it. It has a German QWERTZ keyboard with a different mapping than the ROM flashed onto it by the Ebay importer. The Y/Z thing isn't as annoying as the constant hunt for which symbol/punctuation is mapped to which key. But I'm starting to get used to it. I bought a 1GB SD card for it. The top 2 items on my PPC wishlist right now would definitely have to be larger SD capacities and integrated GPS.

All in due time, I suppose.. for now, my newfound words of wisdom: "Oh no sir, this device is airplane safe!"